Hot Jewish Sluts

The Sorrow and the Pity of Black Book

The ever-controversial Paul Verhoeven turns his lens on hot Jewish sluts in Black Book, a period piece about the lengths to which one Jewish woman will go to see that La Résistance triumphs over the Nazis. Will she disguise herself as a gentile to infiltrate Nazi headquarters? You betcha! Would she kiss a Nazi? Sure she would! Will she show her tits? Better believe it! But... would... she... go ALL THE WAY with A NAZI? Of course, if said Nazi is non-threatening, stamp-collecting Ludvig (played by Sebastian Koch).

Black Book is a sordid little whodunit that just happens to be set during World War II. In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, after her family is killed by Germans, the extremely foxy and well-appointed Rachel (Carice van Houten) changes her name to Ellis, dyes her pubic hair blonde, and proceeds to sleep her way into Nazi society, where she hopes to use her influence to rescue Dutch prisoners. There's a traitor amidst her resistance cell, though, and all of Ellis' ardent efforts are wasted when her plans are leaked to the Nazis. But scene after scene of Ellis being humiliated and betrayed eventually has a numbing effect on Black Book, one that not even Verhoeven's liberal use of van Houten's (admittedly gorgeous) semi-clad body can redeem.

Verhoeven seems to be trying to make a mystery/thriller here, but in both genres, Black Book fails to sustain momentum, and when he makes a halfhearted attempt to insert a moral into this grimy little story, it fails on a visceral level. His point—about the vehemence with which people in Nazi-occupied countries often turned on "collaborators"—has been made effectively and elegantly elsewhere, something that becomes clear when Verhoeven attempts to drive his half-felt moral home by dumping a bucket of human shit on his half-naked protagonist. Just like most of Black Book, it's a moment that's heavy-handed, trashy, and not clever enough by half.